BY BETH VELLIQUETTE

bvelliquette@heraldsun.com; 419-6632

CHAPEL HILL -- The residents of Rogers, Eubanks and Millhouse roads, as well as though living out N.C. 54, cheered the decision Monday night by the Orange County Board of Commissioners to truck solid waste to Durham's waste transfer station.

But those who opposed putting a waste transfer site on Millhouse Road had something extra to cheer about when the commissioners included an amendment to remove Rogers Road, Eubanks Road and Millhouse Road from further consideration from any future waste or landfill operations.

The vote came after Orange County Manger Frank Clifton recommended to the commissioners to ask the staff to begin negotiations with Durham to use its waste transfer station for three to five years.

That would give Orange County time to seek other options and also learn more about the costs of trucking waste to the Durham station, Clifton said.

"That three- to five-year period would give you a clear analysis of what those costs would be," Clifton said. "You can look backwards instead of trying to look forward."

Most of the people packed into the boardroom at the Southern Human Resources Center on Homestead Road seemed to be in agreement with Clifton's recommendation, and a few people praised Clifton and his recommendation so much that he began to blush.

Many wore bright green stickers that said, "Choose Durham," and most of the people who spoke said they favored transporting the county's solid waste to Durham.

The three choices the Orange County staff gave the commissioners included Option A -- known as the Highway 54 site. It is about six miles west of Carrboro, near the Piedmont Feed & Garden Center.

People who live in the area objected saying the rural area included wetlands, should be kept rural and that the area is not close to where the trash is generated and not close to a major highway.

Option B was to transport the waste to the Durham County Waste Transfer Station.

Option C was to put a waste transfer station on the 10 acres on Millhouse Road. That property, which is owned by Orange County, is known as the Paydarfar site and is located just north of the landfill.

Opponents said it was too close to the Rogers Road-Eubanks Road-Millhouse Road neighborhoods that have had to deal with the negative effects of the landfills since 1972.

Without much discussion, Commissioner Barry Jacobs made the motion to transport the waste to Durham. In his motion, he also asked the county to consider amending the 1999 agreement it made with the town governments that gave the county responsibility for dealing with the county's waste, and instead engage Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Hillsborough in the process of dealing with the waste.

Jacobs' resolution also asked that a report be generated about various options the county could explore for dealing with its waste by Sept. 2010. His motion included that no more money be spent on consultants without direct authorization by the commissioners.

Commissioner Mike Nelson then asked, to the cheers of those in attendance, if he could add a friendly amendment that Rogers, Eubanks and Millhouse roads be removed from further consideration for waste operations. Jacobs agreed to that amendment, and his motion passed 6-1 with Steve Yuhasz voting against it saying the future considerations wouldn't be transparent if one area was not included.

After the meeting, the Rev. Robert Campbell, who led the fight against the waste transfer station being located anywhere near Rogers Road, appeared giddy at the two decisions.

"I feel great," he said. "I feel excited. I feel confident that we have trust in our representatives."

David Caldwell Jr. remembered standing in his backyard with the elected officials from Chapel Hill and Carrboro in 1972 as they signed the documents that promised in exchange for putting the landfill on Eubanks Road the governments would build a recreation center for the neighborhood.

That was the first of many broken promises, he said.

Thirty-seven years later, they still have no recreation center, and some of the roads aren't paved, and they don't have sidewalks, but at least they have a promise that no more waste operations will be put in their neighborhood.

"It couldn't have turned out better," he said of Monday's decisions.